Exclusion and Embrace - Miroslav Volf (1996)
Monday, February 27, 2012 at 1:18PM 
Miroslav Volf is a professor at Yale University and the director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Volf was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, a center of rising ethnic violence in the last 20 years. Volf’s most noted work, “Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation”, confronts this impulse and action of violence not only as theological response but as a practical alternative. As the title indicates, the book centers itself on a thesis which presents exclusion (and identification of the “other”) as the root of conflict and sin and embrace as the metaphorical model of reconciliation and harmonious life. At the root of Volf’s message about human beings and relationship is the concept of identity:
It may not be too much to claim that the future of our world will depend on how we deal with identity and difference.[1]
Exclusion and Embrace articulates the details of offence as “exclusion”, which occurs when we objectify people, removing them from ourselves as wholly other. Volf contrasts that to the activity (metaphorically) of “embrace”, in which we make space for others within ourselves.
...the will to give ourselves to others and “welcome” them, to readjust our identities to make space for them, is prior to any judgment about others, except that of identifying them in their humanity. The will to embrace precedes any “truth” about others and any construction of their “justice.”[2]
The author’s description of exclusion are no less poignant, bringing us to a practical understanding of how separating ourselves from others in rejection does violence to both the individual and social fabric with which we are connected.
Exclusion is barbarity within civilization, evil among the good, crime against the other right within the walls of the self.[3]
Exclusion takes place when the violence of expulsion, assimilation, or subjugation and the indifference of abandonment replace the dynamics of taking in and keeping out as well as the mutuality of giving and receiving.[4]
Volf does more than just explore the concepts of identity and exclusion. He offers a real solution in the concept of the embrace. Embrace here is used as a metaphor to the multi-step process of welcoming, opening, receiving, loving and releasing others in a relational offering that demands nothing but hopes for real love. In fact, one of Volf’s most brilliant points is the recognition that part of true embrace and love (relationally) is that we accept and embrace others even when we don’t understand them, and possibly even when they have hurt us. It is this risking to expose one’s self to such vulnerability (with no assurances) that Volf prises and sees intuitively as the kind of necessity (beyond contracts and other such “assurances”) in true trusting relationships. Finding a singular quote for all of these great concepts would be difficult, but these two captures some of these notions:
The answer, I hope, would be that at the core of the Christian faith lies the persuasion that the “others” need not be perceived as innocent in order to be loved, but ought to be embraced even when they are perceived as wrongdoers.[5]
Without the framework of embrace, the ability-not-to-understand is sterile; but without the ability-not-to-understand a genuine embrace is impossible.[6]
I could extend my citings to literally dozens of excellent quotations from this book. It is very well thought, and very well written. One of the strengths of this book will be to the academic world, since it uses the guided logic of philosophical arguments much more than the dogmatic points from a single doctrinal view to make its presentation. I enjoyed Volf’s logical tiers of arguments he used to build his thesis, even if I didn’t agree with every single point.
One such point of disagreement I had is Volf’s chapter on memory and forgetting as requirements needed for full forgiveness. He says:
In a nutshell, my argument is this: since no final redemption is possible without the redemption of the past, and since every attempt to redeem the past through reflection must fail because no theodicy can succeed, the final redemption is unthinkable without a certain kind of forgetting.[7]
This is a novel notion, but ultimately a dim and weak view of God, His salvation, and His coming fullness of restoration of all things. In scripture, God is literally said to be The Way, The Truth and the Life. He is literally the Word, Light, and Love. God is literally these things. If we say God will forget, by wiping something from all memories in hopes of making the information not have the ability to impact us, we are saying, in essence, that the information is more powerful than God. We are saying that somehow, this knowledge, if it is allowed to exist is more impactive that the God of the universe. It may be a cogent philosophical argument for Volf to use, but it is nonetheless illogical when God’s nature is considered. God cannot be trumped by knowledge. God is Truth. This is a fear-based argument that pits a weakened God against knowledge which must be kept secret (even from God) so that we can all live in harmony. I am not arguing (as some might) that "if this is God, I can't believe in a God like that". No, I am saying, according to God's definition of himself, he can't be like that, or his nature is not correct. In fact, if this were true, we couldn't say about him "in Him there is no shadow of darkness". Hiding knowledge to make life more bearable is, by definition, a shadow meant to conceal something that would harm.
Additionally, the quoted passages are themselves suspect, according to other scholars who point to the Is. 43:25 and Jer. 23:39 words used and translated into "forget" and “remember”. According to Dr. Lois Tverberg (Ph,D, and author with Zondervan and co-author of bestselling “Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus”), the Hebrew words focus on action and deliberate ignoring to follow up actions, rather than mental recall. According to Tverberg[8], It is not that God is wiping a memory, it is that he is choosing not to take action or to bring that information into a response (i.e. punishment, judgment).
Volf is taking a huge issue here but does so in a defensive manner, choosing to think less of God than he does of the memory.
That said, I would offer just this as a potential alternative. Perhaps in culmination of all things, the great and glorious day of the Lord brings both judgment of all deeds and forgiveness on its heals. Those things which have been washed in the blood of the Lamb (and people have been recorded as having been remembered explicitly as being included in that Lambs Book of Life) will be overwhelmingly delivered a pardon of great love and forgiveness.
In that day, in that moment of revelation, each human will see the totality of the sin they have wrought. They will see the immensity of that sin, laid not impersonally, but tragically on the Son of God Himself. They will see the Creator of the Universe turn to them and bring down upon them the pronouncement of forgiveness, even in the light of the truth of the sin and its judgment (which was taken upon the Lamb for them). In that moment, the freedom, thankfulness, the love will have free reign. There will be no sulking places to retreat to "at night". For we will be in the city of God's light, living in His very presence. In that light, with that forgiveness stitching our very being together, how will we will turn to anyone else and look for judgment, curse, and punishment. We will not. Even in the truth of loved ones slaughtered, selves violated and years of pain, that pain will be done. The loved ones will be healed, resurrected, tears wiped away and standing there among us. The years will not be wiped from all memory but will fade infinitesimally amidst the joy of love, forgiveness and living people all around (all those who were hurt and we took up offense for, including our most loved ones).
Volf even contradicts himself later in his book with this argument:
At a deeper level, a toast to the past was a toast against the arbitrariness of the powerful who mask their misdeeds by denying that they took place.[9]
and even more powerfully
Justice without memory is an incomplete justice, false and unjust. To forget would be an absolute injustice in the same way that Auschwitz was the absolute crime. To forget would be the enemy’s final triumph. [10]
I agree. Justice is not justice if the violation is simply wiped from memory as a final remedy. The true remedy is forgiveness and love in light of the offense, bringing offender and offended back into union with one another and with God.
This is the great God of Love, Truth and Light, who ultimately did not "hide" history, but embraced it- on the cross. He chose to embrace the pain, that would one day turn to joy. If God had wanted to perform the act of forgetting, why would he not have rewound history all the way back to the garden, erased the memory of the brokenness of that original sin, and helped them "get it right", so all this frightful mess would be done well with goodness. Why? Because, we all know and understand- that to declare God to be a God who would chose to erase history because He and His plan of love, redemption and forgiveness was too weak to work without the ability to "change the rules" seems a silly and powerless thing. It's not the God of the Bible, I think.
But the God to who stands ready to face all pain, sin, death and destruction, and take it on his very body the exchange of those hideous things for love, joy and forgiveness- that God of the Cross and the Resurrection- that God sounds more like the God of the bible. If we are to gain anything from the entire narrative of the bible (and especially its culmination in Revelation) we must see that YHWH is the God who wins- the God of Love- not the God to can't overcome memories because there just wasn't enough love to conquer them.
Amazon Book Link: http://amzn.to/zUUk5V
Review by Kim Gentes
[1] Volf, Miroslav, “Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation”. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1996)., Kindle Edition, Page 20
[8] Tverberg, Lois, (2004) "Does God Forget Sins", En-Gedi Resource Center. 12 June 2011. http://www.egrc.net/articles/director/articles_director_0104.html (31 Jan 2012).
[9] Volf, Miroslav, “Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation”. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1996)., Kindle Edition, Page 233
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